220 
LOUISIANA TANAGER. 
also skirted with yellow. A skin of what I supposed to be the 
female, or a young bird, differed in having the wings and back 
brownish; and in being rather less. 
The family, or genus, to which this bird belongs, is particu- 
larly subject to changes of colour, both progressively, during 
the first and second seasons; and also periodically, afterwards. 
Some of those that inhabit Pennsylvania change from an olive 
green to a greenish yellow; and, lastly, to a brilliant scarlet; and 
I confess when the preserved specimen of the present species 
was first shown me, I suspected it to have been passing through 
a similar change at the time it was taken. But having examin- 
ed two more skins of the same species, and finding them all 
marked very nearly alike, which is seldom the case with those 
birds that change while moulting, I began to think that this 
might be its most permanent, or at least its summer or winter 
dress. 
The little information I have been able to procure of the spe- 
cies generally, or at what particular season these w^ere shot, 
prevents me from being able to determine this matter to my 
wish. 
I can only learn, that they inhabit the extensive plains or 
prairies of the Missouri, between the Osage and Mandan na- 
tions; building their nests in low bushes, and often among the 
grass. With us the Tanagers usually build on the branches of a 
hickory or white oak sapling. These birds delight in various 
kinds of berries with which those rich prairies are said to 
abound. 
